Cheon Lab

We are overjoyed to announce that Professor Randy Schekman of UC Berkeley, also recognized for his 2013 Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine, will be appointed affiliated Professor at Yonsei-IBS as well as a distinguished member of our advisory board.

Throughout the second semester of 2016, five special seminars hosted by Prof. Schekman are to be held at the Sinchon Campus of Yonsei University.

Prof. Schekman was one of the three winners of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Physiology/Medicine in honor of discovering and studying the origin of a major transport system in human cells. Such great discovery opened up new possibilities for the prevention and treatment of diseases including immunological diseases and diabetes.

Prof. Schekman was the “pioneering” researcher among the shared winners, Thomas C. Südhof, and James Rothman. He had studied and experimented with yeast from the 70s, and found out three critical genes that control and regulate vesicle traffic. Following Prof. Schekman’s findings, Prof. Rothman found out details how vesicles know how to reach their correct destination and where and when to release their contents. Finally, having gained momentum from the discoveries of the Prof. Schekman and Rothman, Prof. Südhof who is most known for his focus on presynaptic neurons, discovered machinery mediating neurotransmitter release. They are credited with uncovering the mysteries of the release and trafficking of neurotransmitters, which dominate human brain activities. Their feats have enabled humankind to gain basic scientific knowledge on the mechanisms of brain activities.